


everybody's got a hungry heart

by jugheadjones



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Blow Jobs, Cheesecake, Domestic Fluff, Feeding Kink, Food Kink, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Hand Feeding, Hand Jobs, Love, M/M, Reconciliation, as bruce springsteen once sang...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 13:24:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14874552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugheadjones/pseuds/jugheadjones
Summary: Fred’s starving, and gobbles half of his plate in record time, using the crust of his bread to mop at the extra sauce. The dish is comforting somehow, the taste reminding him of his own childhood, his mother’s dinners.“I’ve missed this,” says FP casually, staring anywhere but Fred’s face. He speaks gruffly, but his fingers have been anxiously shredding the corner of his napkin into snow. “You and me.”Date? or not a date?He moves his fork a bit to the left. FP’s eyes follow it.Date, thinks Fred, with a swoop of panic, stuffing another mouthful past his lips to disguise his uncertainty. Date, date, date.





	everybody's got a hungry heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bewareoftrips](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewareoftrips/gifts).



> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> tw for weight loss mention, weight gain, food

Fred’s not sure if this is a date or not.

He takes a sip from the bottom of his soda - nothing alcoholic in FP’s home anymore - and watches from the table as his high school sweetheart slathers garlic butter on a loaf of bread, his narrow hips wedged in between the curve of the countertop and his too-small trailer fridge. FP yanks heartily against the oven door to check on what Fred’s been promised is a three-layer lasagna, (since when did FP know how to cook?) and the smell wafting out feels intimately like a memory: the teenage games of house they used to play when Fp had first been thrown out of his father’s place and into his own trailer.

In those days it was Fred who had played domestic more often than not, stashing armfuls of his mother’s groceries in the cupboards and cooking for FP in the evenings. FP was used to taking care of himself - but taking _care_ in FP terms meant something else from the rest of the world. Fred would fix dinner and they’d eat it on the couch where FP slept, using FP’s only two bowls and two forks. They’d sleep together afterward, thrilled by the privacy afforded by a shitty situation, sixteen and rapturous and knowing nothing about the world except that it was theirs.

They didn't last. They _couldn’t_ last. But they’re trying to fix something broken, and hell, it wasn’t 1993 anymore, which meant that maybe -

_maybe,_

this just might be a date after all.

FP had asked him to dinner about a week ago. He’d suggested Fred might bring Archie so that he and Jug could spend time together, though it was clear from the way he’d approached him that this wasn’t for their children’s benefit. Fred had agreed easily, but he still had no idea exactly what this dinner invite meant to his oldest friend, or how he’s supposed to be behaving.

It’s the goddamn way FP’s cleaned up his facial hair, is what it is. He’s trimmed it and neatened it up - maybe even gone out to a barber shop to get it like that - and who the hell did that if this wasn’t at least a little bit of a date? But he’s in old clothes: a loose flannel over a worn gray t-shirt and jeans, and so maybe it isn't. Maybe it’s wishful thinking from their locker room days. Or maybe it’s because Fred’s been watching his ass in those jeans and thinking about how nice it would be to come home to this, for this to be his life: the two of them in the kitchen making dinner and their kids on the way home.

“Cheesecake for dessert,” says FP, and snaps a dish towel over his shoulder.

“You made a cheesecake?”

“Bought,” FP corrects, and Fred laughs. FP grins nervously at him: a special, private kind of grin that makes Fred smooth his T-shirt down self-consciously in case it is a date after all. FP turns to face him, planting both hands on the table.

“I wanna turn my life around, Freddie,” he says seriously. “I mean it.”

Fred’s heard that one before, but this is the first time he's believed it. He meets FP’s gaze, running through comforting words in his mind. None of them seem right. He’s opening his mouth to reply when the buzzing of a cell phone cuts through the silence: FP’s, skittering with vibration on the counter. FP frowns at the tiny screen and types a laborious sentence. FP’s thumbs are too big for the keyboard.

“Who was that?” asks Fred.

“Text from Jughead. He and Arch are seeing a movie.” FP turns to face him, setting his phone down on the counter. “Won’t be back until eight or nine. We’re on our own.”

Fred’s disappointed for a moment, but only one: his son’s lack of manners is secondary to the mystery of exactly what FP wants from this evening, the question of how close to FP’s his feet can stray under the table when they’re eating.

“Guess we eat a lasagna to ourselves,” jokes Fred, and swears he sees something strong and needy flicker over FP’s face, realizes his own heart rate is running so fast at the fact of their aloneness that he can feel his pulse throbbing over his adam's apple.

Fred thinks maybe the kids know exactly what they’re doing.

* * *

FP serves him a generous portion of lasagna, smothered in at least three discernable kinds of cheese. Fred takes the first bite with some trepidation, remembering the failed efforts of FP’s twelfth grade home ec projects, but the dish is heavenly: soft and flavourful and warm.

FP is watching him with laser-like intensity, and Fred smiles encouragingly at him.

“It’s great,” he says, his hand flying to his lips to cover the fact he’s talking with his mouth half-full - god, when did he get this comfortable around FP again? - and hastens to lay the praise on thick as soon as he swallows. “It’s _delicious_ , FP”

He sees the happiness flicker on in FP’s eyes - almost a foreign expression now, or at least one he hasn't seen in years. His friend’s always responded well to praise so Fred takes a generous bite of garlic bread and tells him that that’s delicious too. FP looks somehow nervous and shy and excited all at once, and Fred’s heart skips a beat. The moment feels dizzyingly intimate, and he starts feeling ridiculous for thinking this was just friendly when the way FP is looking at him is anything but platonic.

Fred’s starving, and gobbles half of his plate in record time, using the crust of his bread to mop at the extra sauce. The dish is comforting somehow, the taste reminding him of his own childhood, his mother’s dinners.

“I’ve missed this,” says FP casually, staring anywhere but Fred’s face. He speaks gruffly, but his fingers have been busy anxiously shredding the corner of his napkin into snow. “You and me.”

_Date? or not a date?_

“Me too,” agrees Fred, and takes a sip from his glass. To his disappointment, FP doesn’t pursue the topic.

“More?” asks FP instead, and Fred nods, unsurprised when he ends up with another huge portion: FP’s never been one to skimp on food. He eats slower this time, more aware of the way FP is looking at him. FP, usually ravenous, is picking at his meal, his eyes glued to Fred’s plate. The nervous energy he’s radiating is off the charts. Fred feels his skin prickle.

He moves his fork a bit to the left. FP’s eyes follow it.

Date, thinks Fred, with a swoop of panic, stuffing another mouthful past his lips to disguise his uncertainty. Date, date, date.

By the third serving, though, ladled onto his plate without asking, ( _It wouldn’t taste as good heated up_ , FP had insisted, _may as well eat it now-_ ) Fred is skeptical. Surely three massive slices of lasagna were pushing the boundaries of a romantic evening into gluttony. He’s wearing what he’s termed his recovery jeans, a pair he’d bought second-hand two sizes smaller than his usual. That kept them from sliding off his hips after the weight he’d lost in hospital, though the heavy leather belt he’d had to cinch them with this morning is now cutting painfully into the flesh of his stomach.

“Excuse me,” he says softly after a few minutes, and sets his napkin down on the table. Closing himself in the trailer bathroom, he moves his belt up three notches before checking his hair in the mirror. 

There was really only one thing to do when you didn’t know if a date was a date, and that was ask. And God, he hoped he had the answer right.

* * *

When he returns to the kitchen, FP’s finished his third plate. Fred waves off a refill of his glass as he sits back down. “I had to loosen my belt before I passed out,” he says conversationally, scooting his chair back in. “I had no idea you were going to turn into this good of a cook.”

FP turns crimson. Fred figures that’s his cue.

“FP,” he asks, “is this a date?”

FP laughs at that, looking quickly away. His voice is low when he speaks.

“You really think I’d invite you over, make you dinner, and tell you I wanted to stay buddies?”

Fred feels a genuine smile slipping up over his cheeks, a warmth in the pit of his stomach that has nothing to do with the third-of-a-pan of lasagna they’ve decimated between them. “I was just checking.”

FP laughs again and Fred feels better, more at ease. He has an impulsive urge to reach out and squeeze his hand.

“I don’t think I can finish this,” he says, indicating his third serving with his fork. FP’s face falls like he’s been told his dog just died, and Fred backpedals quickly.

“I can try,” he says hurriedly, putting another forkful in his mouth. “It’s really good.”

* * *

He expects the nervous energy to dissipate now that everything's out in the open, but instead FP seems to be squirming more and more, shifting in his seat everytime Fred takes a slow bite. Fred pauses with his fork in the air and watches FP’s eyes drop from the fork to his lips and then back. He’s chewing a toothpick into a wet pulp, and blushes again when he sees Fred looking.

Fred hacks the remaining piece of lasagna abruptly into three and swallows it in three bites. FP chokes on a sip of his water and lets out a series of painful-sounding coughs.

Fred makes a mental note to remember that one.

“Do you want-” FP swallows, coughing still. “Dessert?”

“Maybe we should take advantage of an empty house,” says Fred offhandedly. “Boys won’t be at the movies forever.”

“Christ, Freddie,” says FP, tossing his napkin onto his plate. “I like the way you think.”

* * *

“I think I overdid it,” Fred sighs, slumping back onto FP’s rickety trailer bed so that the frame groans in protest, the headboard thudding against the wall. He keeps his eyes narrowed to slits so he can see FP’s reaction. Fred springs back up when FP goes red, discomfort forgotten.

“A-ha!” He points accusingly at him. “You’re blushing!”  

“I’m not blushing,” protests FP defensively, his face going deeper pink. He shoves his hands tight in his pants pockets in defiance. Fred is undeterred.

“You’re blushing! I knew this was a thing.”

“A thing?” asks FP, feigning perfectly dull innocence.

“A _ploy_ ,” Fred corrects himself. “This whole evening has been a ploy. Admit it.”

FP squirms, sitting down on the corner of the bed. The mattress dips further. “It’s not a ploy. You didn’t even know it was a _date_.”

Fred ignores him. “You feed me three helpings of lasagna, and you tell me it’s not a ploy?”

FP’s embarrassed face settles into a small smirk, eyes flickering up to meet Fred’s at last. “Okay,” he admits. “It’s a ploy. I like-uh-”

He pauses there, tongue pressed to the bottom of his front teeth, somewhere on the knife edge of a confession. Then he lets out a bark of a laugh and looks away. FP has laugh lines crinkling up around his eyes. Something about it makes Fred’s pulse thrum harder and faster through his wrists.

“Watching you eat,” FP admits finally, the syllables like music. “You know that.”

He had known it. Known it and discarded it the way he’d known from the start that this evening wasn’t just friendly.

“Because-?” prompts Fred curiously, reaching out to trace FP’s wrist with his finger.

“Like you well-fed,” FP mumbles. He turns his hand over on the covers so Fred can hold it. Fred smiles affectionately at that.

“This is what you like, huh?”

Fred tips his head toward the kitchen, and FP catches his lower lip instinctively between his teeth. He nods, mute.

“Well, hey, I still have room left,” says Fred casually, shuffling lower on the bed. FP’s teeth sink deep into his lower lip. The expression on his face flits from interested to desperate, and hell if it isn’t the hottest thing Fred’s ever seen.

“Fred-“ he croaks, cheeks burning pinker, and Fred grins the crooked, disarming smile that once upon a time sent every girl in their senior class into a swoon.

“Go get the cheesecake,” he says, and FP looks like he’s given him everything he’s ever wanted all at once.

* * *

The cheesecake is buttery and rich: dense, cold, and creamy. It’s plain cheesecake, which Fred likes fine, but what he likes better is the way FP squirms whenever he brings a forkful to his lips, the way his breathing gets shallower and his pupils widen when Fred meets his eyes on the bed. The slice FP had cut him is big enough for two, but FP shakes his head when Fred offers him a bite, and he doesn’t try again.

Nudging the empty fork into FP’s hand earns him a deep crimson blush that starts on FP’s cheekbones and trips up to his ears. FP shifts on the bed, rising up onto his knees to feed Fred at a better angle, the hand holding the plate trembling ever so slightly.

Fred leans back against the headboard and thinks about his younger self: Fred, age 18, fasting for baseball season. Fred, 21, who'd stopped eating entirely the summer his dad died. Compares them to Fred, forty, who might eat an entire cheesecake before the night is out. Kind of wants to see where this goes. 

He makes it through a slice and a half before it gets hard. FP coaxes the rest of slice number two into him and then eats two of his own, foregoing the fork and using his bare fingers, devouring them in six bites each.

FP has no trouble swallowing two slices of cheesecake like they’re nothing and could probably eat the rest of it without breaking a sweat, but that’s not the game they’re playing. With FP still kneeling above him, Fred grabs his wrist and brings FP’s hand down to his face so he can suck his fingers clean. The sweetness on his tongue and in his mouth is the best thing he’s ever tasted.

“Done,” says Fred when he’s cleaned FP’s fingers of the cake.

“Done,” FP repeats, looking oddly dazed and helpless in his dominant position, pupils blown, his eyes tracing down every inch of Fred’s body before his face reasserts itself into a confident grin.

“You wanna take my clothes off?” asks Fred easily, and FP’s grin gets wider and brighter than before.

* * *

He makes FP carry the remaining half-cheesecake back to the fridge before they go any further, the surface already glittery with condensation. Fred says they can save it for the kids, but FP gets a smirk on his face when he says it that tells him Archie and Jughead might be out of luck this time around.

“You could have had another piece,” says FP when he returns, kneeling back on the bed and helping Fred lean back comfortably against the wall. Fred kisses him quickly, before the taste of the cheesecake can leave his mouth. FP’s scruff tickles him as he pulls back.

“If I’d had another piece I wouldn’t be able to do what we’re about to do right now.”

“I’ll do all the work,” says FP, straddling him easily, and it’s familiar now - years of high school makeout sessions behind closed doors, the two of them in Fred’s attic bedroom or else pressed together on the rickety, worn-out trailer couch, blue-jeans and back seats and prom nights and the way FP tasted always like cigarette smoke and fumbled getting his zipper down. His body weight is warm on Fred’s thighs, heavy and handsome and true. There’s so much sensation that he shivers.

FP lifts Fred’s t-shirt up over his head for him and the movement comes as natural as breathing, as the basketball drills they used to practice endlessly, repeating the same motions over and over until they collapsed into a sweaty heap out in the sun. They’d kiss on basketball courts more than once. Fred used to have scrapes on his shoulder blades to prove it.

Fp swallows twice when he sees how tight Fred’s waistband is. When he makes no move toward the belt buckle Fred reaches for it himself, thinking he might actually suffocate if he doesn’t get his pants off soon. FP reaches out quickly and pins his wrists down.

“I’ll do it.”

FP’s dominant side comes out very rarely, so Fred obeys without question. His hands leave damp marks on his wrists when he lets go. Skimming his fingers gently across Fred’s stomach, he undoes his belt and jeans for him and tugs the zipper down. Fred takes a full breath for the first time in an hour, and FP’s face fills with blood.

“This is what you like?” asks Fred again as FP slides the jeans down his hips. It takes a bit of elbow grease. FP’s lips are raw where he keeps biting them.

He smiles, offhand and apologetic and seductive all at once, his hair messed up and his face still pink and a little smudge of tomato sauce on the corner of his lip. Fred wishes he could take a picture of it.

“I’ve never seen even an extra inch on you before,” says FP, shy but not ashamed, looking down at Fred with a tenderness that hits his skin like sunlight. His hands slide over Fred’s hips and squeeze, callused and rough and hot. He works Fred’s underwear down to his thighs. “I like it.”

“Don’t get used to it,” says Fred without thinking, merely because he owns pants he’s had to term _recovery jeans_ anyways, but FP doesn’t seem satisfied with that answer.

“We’ll see,” says FP, and kisses him on the throat, and then the jaw, and then the neck, and then down, down, down, trailing kisses from his chest to the place where his too-tight jeans had bitten a pink imprint into his skin. Then lower.

As FP bends his head toward his cock, Fred reaches out and skims his hand through FPs dark hair, grabbing a handful and tugging hard. FP lets out a soft moan, his breath ticklish on Fred’s skin. He reaches up to grip Fred’s hips in his splayed fingers, his head bobbing as he takes him deeper in his mouth.

Fred tips his head back until it hits wall, loses himself in feeling: FP’s tongue on him and his warm hands and the fullness of his stomach and the memories of trysts like this one: the front of their beat-up VW bus in high school, the closed-off stairwell behind the gym, his basement rec room on a rainy night when his parents were out. The way he wanted more of this, maybe forever.

He shuts his eyes tight, his fingers automatically stroking through FP’s hair, and prays the kids are in a long, long, long movie.

* * *

He comes and FP swallows it, kisses him all over with his stubble rasping against Fred’s skin and spends an extra long time on the V of his hips, the softest part of his belly, running his hands all over him like he’s trying to memorize his flesh. FP nips at his stomach and Fred flicks him in the forehead.

“Come up here,” he says, and FP does, shimmying up on the bed and climbing into Fred’s lap. FP nuzzles into Fred’s neck and kisses his throat, trailing his hands lower and lower along his body until he’s pressing both palms flat against Fred’s stomach. He can feel the press of his erection through the material of his jeans.

They’ve made love like this before, FP straddling him, Fred holding him in place, and just the memory of it is enough to send shivers of delight up his spine. He rocks his hips slightly to adjust FP’s position on his thighs, reaching down and undoing FP’s jeans so he can wrap his hand securely around his cock. FP moans unabashedly, his hot breath tickling Fred’s neck, and scrapes his nails gently across his sides and over his stomach as Fred touches him.

He thinks briefly and greedily that he could do this for the rest of his life: kiss FP Jones in his ruined trailer bedroom, wear holes into the plaster wall where the bedframe scraped when they fucked, eat whatever he wanted him to, fall asleep in his arms. A lifetime of that. FP’s breathing is hard and heavy in his ear and Fred wills himself not to let his eyes fall closed, forces himself to watch the perfect little crease that appears between FP’s eyes, the blissful look on his face, the sweat in his hair.

FP comes into his hand and Fred moves to wipe it off on the sheets. Quickly, FP grabs his wrist, brings the fingers to his lips and licks himself off Fred’s hand the way Fred had licked the cheesecake off of his.

Fred makes a face, which makes FP laugh. He kisses Fred’s damp fingers, kisses his palm, his wrist, and then leans in and kisses him properly: stubble and tongue and heat, one hand in his hair and the other still tracing delicate circles above the scar from his bullet wound. Fred leans backward and FP follows him down, helps him adjust himself so his head is on the pillow.

FP shimmies his jeans the rest of the way off and throws them on the floor. Their bare legs tangle when he joins him, his fingers moving to palm Fred’s stomach, gently tracing the scar and smoothing out the imprint from his belt.

“We should get dressed,” says Fred tiredly, though he doesn’t want to: feels sleepy and sated and safe with FP next to him, has time to think for the briefest moment that this could be forever if he was lucky enough. “Don’t want to be here when the kids get in.”

“Kids better not,” replies FP, running his hand over Fred’s stomach and then lower, lower, lower. “Cost me twenty bucks each to get ‘em to leave us alone. They’re staying at your place until the morning.”   



End file.
